Welsh veterans service examines EMDR delivered outdoors
A Welsh veterans service moved some EMDR sessions outdoors during COVID-19 restrictions. A later review of 30 veterans who completed treatment found improvements in PTSD symptoms in both the outdoor and indoor groups.
Julie Graham’s evaluation, published July 24 in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, compared 15 outdoor cases with 15 indoor cases from Veterans NHS Wales in Hywel Dda University Health Board.
The outdoor group had a median of seven sessions, compared with 17 indoors. Outdoor appointments were longer, however, and were offered more intensively during pandemic restrictions. Those differences make it difficult to separate the effect of the setting from the treatment schedule.
PTSD improvements persisted at six months in both groups. The evaluation was retrospective, with no random allocation, and included only people who finished treatment. It did not assess dropout rates.
The outdoor format also required sufficient mobility to walk with the therapist. The paper raises a question worth testing in a larger trial.
